


On The Bitter Shore

by TheWaffleBat



Series: Home From All The Ports [11]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Comfort/Angst, Dad!Barnabas, Dad!Herodotus, Gen, Immortality, laugh through the pain Barnabas, sad feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-24 03:50:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18161102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWaffleBat/pseuds/TheWaffleBat
Summary: Barnabas swallowed an aching lump in his throat and pressed his mouth to Kassandra's head, couldn’t find words - he was never really very good with them - and he hated Pythagoras for putting that burden in Kassandra’s hands, the heavens and the earth and all the fates between a millstone around her neck. “The gods have made you immortal,” He said, and Herodotus shut up, eyes going wide. “Haven’t they?”People have always wanted to be immortal. It's not quite so glamorous when it happens to family.





	On The Bitter Shore

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Rudyard Kipling's _The Gift of The Sea._
> 
> Written for the prompt from gillywulf; _It might be fun to see them reacting to the realization that their daughter is particularly “long lasting”._

Barnabas looked to the sea, where the sun had just set below the horizon. Poseidon was calm at least - his waves gentle against the beach sand - so that couldn’t be why Kassandra had asked he and Herodotus to sit with her, watching the water and Ikaros hung high in the sky, a speck against the clouds, Lykaon rubbing his back and the side of his face against the cloak Kassandra had spread out to dry long hours ago.

He glanced at Herodotus, saw his wrinkles made deeper by worry; not good. Looked to Kassandra, and like Poseidon’s waters she seemed calm, too - but, then, so did some rivers, no ripples on its surface to betray the dangerous undertow beneath. It wasn't a danger, then; or at least it wasn't a danger she could turn her blade to, taking to the open water and the Adrestia's hull cleaving through a ship's flank. Something personal, and Barnabas kept his eye on her, the tightness around her mouth, her eyes; the flash of her teeth like a wolf threatening to show them. Personal problems were never very good for Kassandra.

Kassandra took their hands, studied the knots of their fingers locked with hers, and Barnabas gave Herodotus another worried glance over her head as he squeezed her large hand.

“Kassandra?” Said Herodotus, hushed against the frown carved deep on Kassandra’s face.

Kassandra sighed, sharp and angry. From her back she pulled out the bundle of old rags and blankets that had been beside her bed since she’d met with Pythagoras that last time. Stroked it the way she had a cat she'd pulled from a vat of oil, the need to do it winning out over disgust at the slimy touch. “I told you about Pythagoras,” She said. “My… father, and the fact that he was immortal. It’s...” She sighed again, sharper, and the wrinkle between her brows didn’t smooth out when Barnabas soothed his hand over her back, traced the shapes of her muscles iron-solid beneath his palm. “He gave me his staff - an Isu staff. It was what had kept him alive for so long.”

Ah, Barnabas thought, and looked back to where the sun had disappeared, kept up the soothing rhythm across her back because he needed it more than she did. Put his other hand over hers tight around the bundle of rags and squeezed.

He listened to the catch in Herodotus’ breath when the thing was shown to him, but ignored his excited babbling about the old civilisations, the technological marvels that must have gone into Hermes’ staff, because Herodotus was never so important as Kassandra warm against his side, big and tall and broad; never so interesting as their extraordinary daughter, their child facing the countless ages ahead  _alone_ , turning her face into his shoulder, ducking her head low when he gave her a gentle tug because she wanted his kiss to her head.

 _His daughter_ , and his heart ached at the thought; buried his face in her hair because _gods,_  his daughter. His wonderful, spectacular daughter, strong and powerful as an angry Ares but helpless in the face of this burden, and it _was_ a burden; heavy on her shoulders when they slumped, obvious in answers she didn’t have for Herodotus. Such a grand thing to have when it was someone else, someone he didn't love, someone who wouldn't let him fiddle with her hair, tucking locks fallen loose from the tie back to the braid. Kassandra was not Atlas, didn't deserve to have to carry all the heavens and the world as he did.

Barnabas swallowed an aching lump in his throat and pressed his mouth to Kassandra's head, couldn’t find words - he was never really very good with them - and he _hated_ Pythagoras for putting that burden in Kassandra’s hands, the heavens and the earth and all the fates between a millstone around her neck. “The gods have made you immortal,” He said, and Herodotus shut up, eyes going wide. “Haven’t they?”

Kassandra looked down at the staff, at her hands choked tight around it. Nodded. “As long as I own this, yes. It… yes.”

Carefully, Kassandra wrapped it back up in the rags and blankets, its power fading slowly from her fists clenched tight on top of her knees when she put it back behind her. Barnabas watched Herodotus press his own kisses to her head, the spark in his eyes dulled when he turned his gaze to Ikaros circling high overhead, his lonely cry echoing across the endless sea.

Barnabas knew - of course he knew - that if it hadn’t fallen to her then it would fall to someone else, and frankly Barnabas wouldn’t trust anyone else with that power, the secrets of Atlantis she’d locked away, but _why Kassandra?_  Why the daughter of an old sailor and an old scholar, who they loved and who loved them back, called them both _pater_ late at night when she found them awake and wanted to sit with them, murmuring about nightmares and old bad memories she’d never quite managed to shake off, wondered if she’d done the right thing sending Myrrine back to Sparta? Why the daughter of even the grey-muzzled Wolf of Sparta, who was not  _pater_ but that she let sling an arm about her shoulders, her snarls to him a wolf's playful grin when they sparred, as much his pup as she was the Adrestia's kitten? Why Kassandra, why not some other child Pythagoras could have sired and raised to bear Hermes' staff?

Perhaps he should hate the Isu, for making the staff that had glowed red-gold from Kassandra’s hands, power heavy in the scrawl of words no one was meant to understand on its haft, the entwined snakes at its head. They had made the thing whose light glowed warm in Kassandra’s veins, crawling up her strong arms through her blood that was the only blood that could accept its poison touch - it was only right Barnabas grit his teeth against the urge to throw it to Poseidon, lost forever; a neat match for Kassandra’s clenched jaw that said she felt the same.

“I could break it,” Said Kassandra. “Or throw it into the volcano on Thera. If there’s nothing to give this power then no one can misuse it, the Isu’s simulations mean nothing. I can live my life as I want to.” She swallowed. “I do not have to obey fate.”

“Of course not!” Said Barnabas, and he might only be an old sailor but he’d take a knife to the gods for Kassandra, just as she would for him and for Herodotus nodding agreement on her other side, if they dared try to force her. “What do they know, eh? _No one_ could foresee you taking a dagger to their hearts, fates or not. To Hades with them!”

“You said that what you saw, what… Alatheia? told you was far in the future. That your visions were thousands of years beyond our time. You said that it was a long way off. What does it matter if you spit in the eyes of the gods, here and now, and refuse to play their games? The world has a way of sorting itself out without them or us to meddle in it.” He took her wrist in a gentle grip, ducked his head low so Kassandra couldn’t help but to see his gentle smile. “Do what you think is best. If you think the Isu’s power too dangerous for the world...” His mouth twisted, “Destroy it. Sometimes things are best forgotten.”

Barnabas clapped her knee, laughed away the ache in his heart, the pain tight in his chest. “To Hades with the fates, my friend!” He said again, grinning because he was only an old sea dog, no wolf like Nikolaos, but he had his own snarls for the things that would hurt his daughter; humour and smiles and Herodotus' steady gaze, their place at Kassandra's side that would never be left empty if they could help it, was its own blade against the misery dark in Kassandra's dear face. “Since when do you listen when you don’t want to obey? What could some disembodied tart locked in Atlantis do if you don’t heed her, hmm? A woman millenia gone shouldn’t speak for you if you don’t want her to!”

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be honest, I was entirely done with Odyssey's shit by the time the Atlantis and Cult endings rolled around, so I wasn't really paying attention. Even then, going back to look at those scenes again on youtube, I _still_ have no idea what was going on, so because of that I glossed over the entire thing. The Isu is baffling and annoying.
> 
> If there's anything immediately wrong with the fic please let me know, and more prompts are welcome, just might take a while to complete them.


End file.
